Darwin Day 2014

Dandy Darwin Day (& don't forget Lincoln) . . . the "Darwin's Finches" edition.
*as always, click picture to enlarge

Happy Darwin Day 2013

Happy Darwin Day 2013 . . . our cookie this year represents an illustration from Darwin's monograph on how coral reefs are formed.  Many do not realize that Darwin was also a noted geologist* and that the speculation about the formation of coral reefs was very contested.  It was not until the 1980's or so (with deep sea drilling) that Darwin's theory was finally proven correct.  The man was amazing.  Happy Birthday Charles Darwin . . . and Old Abe as well!
*opens a pdf file.

Paducah!

Some people go to the beach for spring break . . . we went to Paducah! The impetus for the trip was to fulfill our promise to Mane to take her to the National Quilt Museum. Alas, they do not allow photography, so no pictures from there. But, here are some of the other sites we saw . . .

Mane in front of one the panels depicted on the extensive "Paducah Wall to Wall" flood wall mural.

This has been on my radar for some time . . . the grave-site of "A Man of Courage," John T. Scopes. Born and raised in Paducah, Scopes became famous/infamous for his role in the Scopes Monkey Trial. He went on to work in the oil business in Venezuela, Louisiana, and Texas.

Buried in the same cemetery as Scopes is the once famed and prolific author, humorist, and columnist Irvin S. Cobb. He is the author of one of my favorite "weird tales" called Fishhead. Click on the link and take the time to read this forgotten oddity. By the way, H.P. Lovecraft was very praising of Fishhead, and supposedly it was an inspiration for his own novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

The Lloyd Tilghman House and Civil War Museum was the last residence of Confederate Brigadier General Lloyd Tilghman. He was killed at the Battle of Champion Hill in Mississippi. There is a massive statue of Tilghman at the Vicksburg battlefield (there is also a statue of Tilghman in Paducah, which we visited as well). The tall building in the background on the right of the above photograph is the Irvin Cobb Hotel (now apartments for senior citizens). On a tip from Vic, we went into the lobby of this place. This place must have been amazing at one time. Every inch of the former lobby is covered with some kind of decoration. Good to see that it has survived, but it needs to be brought back to life. Click on the link above to see some pictures of the hotel.

The Tilghman house is also a really nice museum that pertains to the Jackson Purchase area in the Civil War. The exhibit pictured above relates the story of Nathan Bedford Forrest's raid on Paducah in March of 1864. Most of the places relating to the battle have been lost to time, including Fort Anderson which Forrest attacked (the convention center is located there now).

Captain Dudeboy guiding his barge up the Ohio River. This simulation is one of the exhibits at the River Heritage Museum.

Wacinton . . . "Hand chiseled from a local 56,000 pound Red Oak to honor the Chickasaw Indians who lived and hunted in this area until the Jackson Purchase, 1818." Not far from here is the well known Chief Paduke statue.

Just across the river in Illinois is the location of the Kincaid Mounds. These earthen mounds date to the Mississippian time period. There is an observation/information area, but access to the actual mounds is prohibited.

Our tourist photo-op at Metropolis, Illinois.

George Rogers Clark sentineled over the Ohio River at Fort Massac in Metropolis.

Happy Darwin Day 2012!

Happy Darwin Day! We have been so busy that I almost didn't get to post our Darwin Day celebration. Dudeboy decorated our Darwin Day cookie this year. As you can see, he did a great job.

I have also uploaded the video we made three years ago (wow, three years ago) of Dudeboy reciting the last line of the Origin of Species. Like a bonehead, I somehow deleted our youtube account, so I will be slowly re-uploading most of our videos to our new account at Vimeo.

Dudeboy's Darwin Day from TO Fife on Vimeo.

Dawkins and Dudeboy

Thursday the Fife clan, along with Uncle Panpau DelGato, traveled to Richmond, Ky. to the campus of Eastern Kentucky University to hear eminent evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins spoke about his new book, The Magic of Reality, to an overflowing crowd.

This photo of Dawkins answering questions was taken by Dudeboy.

Dudeboy gets his book signed by Dr. Dawkins. The book is geared toward 12-year-olds and discusses the scientific explanation behind many world myths. Photo taken by Uncle Panpau DelGato.

Happy Darwin Day!

Happy Darwin Day (and Lincoln Day) from the Kingdom of Fife!

Our celebrations included readings from Charles Darwin's Beagle Diary and the facsimile book The Darwin Experience. Last night we watched the 2009 film Creation. And tonight we plan on engaging in a rousing game of Parasites Unleashed. But the capstone of our Darwin Day is/was our Darwin Day Cake (brownie).

Our cake is based on a caricature of a young Darwin riding upon the back of a giant beetle by fellow beetle enthusiast Albert Way. In his autobiography, Darwin exclaimed "no pursuit at Cambridge was followed with nearly so much eagerness or gave me so much pleasure as collecting beetles."

Kentucky State Fair

Farmer Freddy . . . he isn't the same one as when Merkin was a boy.

Merkin was gonna get one, but the line was too long!

Dudeboy with Darwin at the Kentucky Secular Society booth.

Puke machine.

Happy Huxley Day!

Thomas Henry Huxley, aka "Darwin's Bulldog," was born on this date in 1825.

5/4/1825 - 6/29/1895

Darwin Day and his rEvolution

On Friday February 12, Merkin, Dr. J, and I went to Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal to see an exhibit about Darwin: Darwin's rEvolution. My favorite parts of the exhibit were a first edition of the Descent of Man and small metal Darwin and Galapagos tortoise figurines. After that, I went to the history museum which had a re-creation of Cincinnati with scale model trains and trolleys. They also had a real trolley car you could get on. Seeing the trolley car made me feel like Pa when he was a kid, like the time when he entered a car, threw a firecracker under a seat, and said, "Mister, there's a firecracker under your seat." And right when he said that, it exploded. I next went to the kid's museum. It had a scavenger hunt where you followed the purple bottles in the wall to find some gold (it wasn't real).

We stopped in Covington on the way to Louisville to eat at Wertheim's Gausthaus, a German restaurant. I ate some real wurst, schnitzel, sauerkraut, and potato pancake. When we got to Louisville, we shared our Darwin day cookies with the Stone family. It was a completely fun Darwin day. I can't wait until next year.

Darwin's (edible) Tree of Life

Darwin's rEvolution

Birds of Paradise and insects . . . variation and adaptation

Jefferson's Ground Sloth . . . common to the Big Bone Lick area

"Hey mister, there's a firecracker under your seat!"

Darwin Day with the Stone-cold-Birkett family

Happy Lincoln and Darwin Day

Here are a couple of videos from past celebrations for the shared birthday of Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) and Darwin (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882). We are headed to the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal to see the exhibit Darwin's rEvolution. Dudeboy will report back soon about our trip and celebrations.

Big Bats

As an incentive for Dudeboy to accompany me to a couple of lectures at the Darwin 2009 at the University of Louisville conference, I took him to Caufield’s Novelties. While there, we made it a point to view the largest bat (baseball kind) and the largest bat (vampire kind).

Dudeboy adds, "Caufield's is a store that sells jokes, gags, magic tricks, etc. It started out as a photography studio. Because in the waiting room people got bored, Caufield's started selling novelties. Soon the gags out ran the photography business."

Darwin/Lincoln Celebrations

Yesterday was the bicentennial of the birth of Darwin and Lincoln. We went to Hodgenville to see the state of Kentucky’s celebration of Lincoln’s birthday. I saw the governor speak right before they released the new Lincoln bicentennial penny, straight from the mint. The pennies have Lincoln’s cabin on the back—where he was born. I dressed up as Lincoln and saw three other Lincolns. But we didn’t see any other kids dressed up. Later, when we got home we had a cake to celebrate both their birthdays, and we watched a documentary about Darwin. As part of our homeschool, we’ve been doing “Where’s Darwin?” (reading from his Beagle Diary and finding the locations he visited on Google Earth). He never mentioned his birthday on the 12th . . . He only talked about being seasick!
Dude Boy

Happy Darwin Day!

Darwin Day 2009

February 12th is fast approaching and I am sure most all of you are very aware that the 12th is Darwin Day! But it isn’t just any Darwin Day . . . This is the 200th anniversary of his birth. Also, this year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. All this to say, Dudeboy has a special message to share with you.

You can also view this on YouTube at:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8To61tSrfaI

Yammerschooner!

Darwin Day and Worms

Dude Boy, Mane and I went to Aunt Pee's and Charlie Dog's for Darwin Day this year. The gummi worms on the cake represent Darwin's last work . . . The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms With Observations on Their Habits. Dr. J and Dude Boy created the cake while I was out bushwhacking in the woods looking for arches in the Red River Gorge. Charlie Dog and I also went to see Dr. Eugenie Scott give a talk entitled Intelligent Design: Is It Science? Is It Valid? at University of Tennessee at Knoxville. They have one of the longest running Darwin Day celebrations in the U.S.